Love it or hate it, you can't ignore Windows Vista. Fans of Apple's Mac OS X will tell you that all of the good bits of Vista have been blagged from the Tribe of Jobs but the fact remains that the vast majority of us use Windows XP so the question is simple, why the hell should we make the switch from Windows XP to Windows Vista? We've got ten solid reasons why you should.

The average computer in a small business has 300 unlicensed fonts installed on it, leaving that company exposed to legal action, according to a leading typeface company. Monotype says the scale and importance of font piracy is being overlooked.

Government plans to derive 20 per cent of the UK's electricity from renewable sources have been rather spoiled by news from the European Union that in fact 20 per cent of all energy should be green, not just the electricity.

A question sometimes asked is "what do we need analysts for?" Well, according to Dr Jim White of Managed Objects, customers for new technology often select the short list for "requests for quotation" from the analyst's "Magic Quadrants", "Waves", or whatever. So, analysts help businesses choose sensible short lists for procurement.

Widespread exploitation of an unpatched Windows vulnerability involving cursor animation files over the weekend have prompted Microsoft to announce plans to release an out-of-sequence patch on Tuesday.

InterviewThe Metasploit Framework is a development platform for creating security tools and exploits. Federico Biancuzzi interviewed H D Moore to discuss what's new in release 3.0, the new license of the framework, plans for features and exploits development, and the links among the bad guys, Metasploit and the law.

Reg reader workshopSome would argue that it all started with Lotus 123 back in the 80s. When the early spreadsheets emerged and users seized on them as a way of solving their own information requirements, IT's control of the organisation's data started to gradually slip away. We could put all of the security and integrity checks we liked into central systems, but it all counted for nought as soon as the user exported a snapshot of the data and starting manipulating it and distributing it offline.

Regular readers may recall the case of the Cumbria man who obtained a licence to dump his dead gran at the local tip - an enlightened service made possible by the cunning classification of dead relatives as "general domestic waste".

Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) have been celebrating their first pictures with the delightfully titled MAD: Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics Demonstrator.

Despite killing its Mobile ESPN sports-oriented MVNO last year, the Disney Group aims to step up virtual mobile network activities in other areas as part of a broad ranging strategy to use mobile systems to underpin its content business and marketing.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is recruiting volunteers for a simulated trip to Mars. Wannabe astronauts will have to be made of sturdy stuff: the mission will involve being locked, with five other people, in a metal tank somewhere in Moscow for 500 days.

Carphone Warehouse (CPW) revealed it expects to spend between £10m and £15m more than expected on supporting broadband customers when it released Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to the London Stock Exchange today.

A Michigan University frat house will throw out two couches tainted by a mystery masturbating female intruder who used the furniture for an extended public self-pleasuring session, The Michigan Daily reports.

CommentThe largest US wireless show, CTIA, was held last week in Florida, but proved a relatively low key event in terms of major announcements, though as usual a huge statement of the overall weight and vitality of the wireless industry.

Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz loves to splatter the media with the line that Windows, Red Hat Linux and Solaris stand as the only operating systems of significance in the server kingdom. We've spent the last few years struggling to appreciate the seriousness of that claim. Sun's declining system sales failed to inspire much optimism about the company conquering the data centers of tomorrow with a deflating “venerable” OS.